Mark your calendars: the end of the world is coming. No, not the literal demise of the planet, but the end of civilization as we’ve come to know it. To be precise, the end is coming on April 23rd of this year. That’s actually the latest possible date; it could come even sooner.

The March public meeting featured local author Mike Davis speaking about how to use the Bible in discussions with Christian believers. Davis noted that most atheists steer wide of the Bible in such discussions, because they feel that they do not know it very well. Davis claimed that very few Christians have ever read the Bible critically, so pointing out contradictions can be an effective approach to undermine the Bible’s credibility.

Existentialism, as defined and described by Jean-Paul Sartre, is a lucid, compelling account of what it means to live a meaningful life in a world devoid of ultimate meaning. His famous dictum “existence preceded essence” says it all: by accepting the fact of our existence and by acting appropriately on it, one can fashion an identity far truer than the one imposed by religion, the state, or other presumptive authorities.

There is simply no reason why we of Minnesota Atheists should be struggling to get members to tithe or donate mere dollars when, if we used our brains (which atheists, as a community, have plenty of) we could get hundreds of thousands of dollars from rich atheists. We've never tried this in the past, so let's give it a shot now!

Last month Joseph Stack flew his single-engine airplane into the side of an IRS office building in Austin, Texas. The attack killed Stack, one other man, and injured 12 others. The flurry of complaints and unhinged anger in Stack’s suicide note made it difficult to read but it was clear that he had a major grudge against American tax policies and the IRS. Like Stack, most of us don’t enjoy paying taxes (even though we enjoy the services their revenue provides) but before you take a page out of his nefarious playbook on how to stick it to the man maybe you should consider going to Hell instead.